Your answers to the LGBT muse meme whatsit were fascinating and I'm SO curious -- was there a specific moment Beth clocked that her feelings towards Ron had shifted towards romance, or was it a gradual building up of things or...?

Thank you, darling. We appreciate that. Though she's grown in some ways and changed in others from the moment of her conception on far distant, actual paper shores, I've striven to be true to her and to her internal consistency. That being said. I would have to say as with all things deeply emotional with Beth, it was gradual as arctic ice. The very first minutes of their meeting were deeply fraught with not a small amount of terror. His mien, his vocal timbre, maybe the gun...certainly didn't foster any more truer feelings than fear, regret, and maybe a little exasperation for even finding herself in the path of Hurricane Kanuha. Quickly though he put her at ease well enough with a Claude, a fire place, and a lovely cuppa on a cold, rainy, and nerve destroying night. Riley will probably shank me for saying this but I don't think he would have been unfazed with Cellar-Ron. I know she felt terror again to come face to face with a certain Panini in place of her flower growing, chocolate flake sharing publican, and the immediate worry for his absence, made only slightly less harrowing by the letters they wrote during Ron's mental health recuperation. There has always been a notable difference between the Twins for her. I maintain she can spot a Ronnie at a hundred paces in difference to Reg, and she a: finds Ron to be the more attractive brother, the taller one, the broader one, and generally the better fighting man, bless Frances and all. Perhaps the moment of feelings changing which largely went unnoticed by our intrepid pair came when she would sit on the bar-back and pin him between herself and the counter with her legs, while striving to study for her citizenship application. She'd already decided that Ron was really quite friend-shaped, as lovable and affable as any of the dogs. Forgive me if I don't recall if this was before, during, or after the gift of a Noe in her life, but a sign of deep trust and affection for Beth is to allow anyone to be that close to her scar, that they could reach out and touch it. The scar is both traumatic and kapu in her opinion. Sharks are a man's 'aumakua, and to be so permanently marked by one carries both the taboo and the sacred in the word Kapu and she doesn't really feel comfortable letting anyone, not even Andy, touching it. Maybe the moment of being stricken by lightning, and the moment her heart seized up in wonder, that she saw Ron with entirely new eyes...shaken to her foundations, though, was when John turned up. He was the entire reason she'd come to England in the first place. He'd gotten so deeply under her skin, and maybe because he had been the first to tell her that she was loved {or more correctly, and she'll never admit to this before God or anyone else... she'd asked him to love her, and his reply had been 'God help me, but I do'.} that she'd imagined John being the only one who would. But then Ron defended her when John rejected her as a student and as anything else. He'd stood his ground like some fantastical knight if for no other reason than he could see just how dejected she was, and that was the first time she'd seen him ~Ron~ act like that. And for her. Then there was the boxing event. You know of which I speak, and that was a moment where Beth understood very clearly what the meaning of Want was. She doesn't have a single ounce of self preservation in her body when she can see both Ron and Mr Kray at once.

14. Give us a random sinday headcanon or fact about your muse!

Some Like It...Mild || Accepting

"We don't have long, Anastasia, and the way I'm feeling right this moment, we won't need long." Her eyes ever so slowly rise from the page, up over the edge of the book itself, and straight at Ron. She doesn't quite meet his eyes. She knows how he feels about that.

"Like...dat's suppose f' be romantic? Oh yes, want ya so much...it gonna be ovah in a minute an' likely ya not gonna get much out of it."

She flips through some of the pages, scanning them rather than reading.

"A small moan escapes my mouth as my insides melt and unfurl." She snorts indelicately. "Dat's not a' orgasm, dat's a sure symptom of Legionnaires' disease." Flip, flip, flip. "...'How long will dis hideous overwhelming feeling last?' ...apparently, five hundred an' t'irty-some pages." She quiets down a moment when Ron clears his throat and she can't tell if it's a stifled laugh or a more dire warning. After all, he's trying to read, too.

"Oh. Come on! 'It slips down my t'roat, all seawater, salt, da sharp tang of citrus an' fleshiness... ooh. I lick my lips an' he's watchin' me intently, his eyes hooded.' It's an oyster, not his pen-"

Ron's fingertips graze the inside of her wrist slowly, carefully, before he pulls the book out of her hand. ~*~

Do not allow Beth to read/watch any kind of erotica. She will ruin it with running commentary. Which is kind of terrible, because she has a deeply voyeuristic bent. But there's some kind of difference between watching/being watched and what the media has to offer.

💚 Mona Lisa's Mad Hatter as she knows him in modern times

Imagine You and Me || Accepting

A paranoid schizophrenic... ...finds a bipolar nurse in his cellar. And he decides to keep her. Just as our friendship began with "I know someone you'd get on with really well", so too is the story of Ron and Beth. Which began when Beth came to London, looking for someone else, and found Ron. Tumblr dash loves to talk about slow burn. And not a single one of them can touch us. This one is seven literal years of practically daily communicating and writing, and we've barely begun to scratch the surface of everything we have planned. I love just how closely each of them mirrors one another; their strengths and frailties, the reasons behind them, their surprisingly simple joys. The fact that in so loud a world, they are each other's serenity and comfort. They are one another's lodestone. They happened to each other while neither was honestly looking; she wasn't exactly Ron's type, and she didn't have a type. Stalwart though, they have sworn in the full bloom of each other's friendship to always be the other's island in the roughest seas, and neither has ever broken that promise. Beth will never understand why he tries to compare and live up to Reggie, when clearly he's the better man in literally every way. I love how she will die on the hill of making sure that he sees himself the way she does, and how she will roar down anything Them Upstairs can throw at him. I love how he intentionally gentles himself in every conceivable way to suit her needs, even when she doesn't recognise she has any, and how utterly inseparable they are in every sense of the word. This is one of the rare ships I may have mentioned in another post that truly falls under the category of "I love you in every universe" because I really do. And this particular ship is one in which I feel they both get to be happy, that they both feel genuinely loved and wanted. Ron is so wonderful, so vibrant, and everything you write hits me in every one of my feels. I want to just hug you both forever, and I humbly thank you for allowing me to tell half this story. {{??????? / 10}}

Playlist Title: Lazy Sunday

Tunes || Accepting

I. Coastline || Hollow Coves II. Autumn in New York || Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald III. Just The Way You Are || Diana Krall IV. I Just Dropped BY To Say Hello || Johnny Hartman V. Hope || Old Sea Brigade VI. Made to Find You || Belle Mt. VII. Irreplaceable || Chad Lawson VIII. That Moon Song || Gregory Alan Isakov IX. Dirty Paws || Of Monsters and Men X. La Vie en Rose || Emily Watts

An antiqued bulb cast warm, low light on the couple who lay entwined; a tawny leg hooked over a broad, ink-painted shoulder the only sight of them glass and filament could make out from its perch upon a distant, stout armoire. All it knew was that they'd not been there too long, and that something silky and lacy and barely there at all had been thoughtlessly discarded before a head of cropped, jet black hair dipped low and nudged from she who owned the lean appendage draped over that shoulder the most erotic sound.

A purr of equally sensual enjoyment escaped on the breath Ron let out and then drew in again near Beth's skin; his nose and lips at home upon her pubic bone and drifting southwards, kiss by kiss, at a torturously, purposefully languid pace. Nothing bar Beth begging him to would make him rush. He enjoyed worshipping her like this far too much, and he told her so-

"--luv th'taste'a yah"

-in the same sultry tone he'd suggesting retiring early in. Eyes that most thought were black and doll-like, dead of feeling, shone in the inviting dim their natural rich, chocolate brown as Ron gazed between kisses up along Beth's dusky planes; lean and supple and stunning to him, for all it'd taken a little time for him to understand precisely how. A broad hand stroked upwards from her hipbone to the very base of her ribs as he bent his head to continue his worshipping, another of those sensual purrs - encouragement, affection and want shot through it - easing free as his lips parted and he sampled again that taste.

Sense and Sensibility || Accepting

For all the night might be damp and the rain pattering a hymn from far asea against the windows of Cedra Court, it isn't her Mother's embrace that she feels, nor is it that particular dance that sweeps through Ron's soul. The moment is theirs alone and his breath is a sirocco against her own shores. One that raises her back as a perfectly arched question mark, that is paired with a sound that might be carved out of a particularly sinful sultry answering breath. The sole of one small foot flattens against his back ~nebulous ground between scapular muscle and intercostals. Toes curl and dig in to remind him of their presence. She'd been no lamb to the slaughter after supper when she reclined on the far end of the sofa, nimble fingers and slender needles knitting yet another one of the dozens of afghans she'd worked diligently on to donate to Battersea ~he'd mentioned that the walls were slightly cool the last time he'd gone to spend time with the dogs there and she hated the idea of any one of the animals knowing cold~ while Ron'd been reading in his chair as was his wont. She was preternaturally aware when he'd placed his marker and set the tome aside, picked up their cups and placed him into the sink A wink and a heartbeat later, his hands hand rounded against her shoulders. When she tilted her head to the side to better accommodate him, his lips had been at her ear. Her answer was the rush of a smile and the heat that flooded her features. She was certain he could hear her pulse pounding loudly in her ears. His hands had slid her camisole from her body, she'd undone his shirt button by button. Suspenders allowed to hang about his hips. Her skirt had fluttered to the floor before she'd felt the bedding at her back. Felt his hands draw the last barrier of silk and lace from her skin before he'd nestled there. He stokes that ache with his nose, with his mouth, lush lips sliding against sensitive flesh. He'd brought her hips that much closer to his questing tongue by giving one leg up to rest beside his neck. She feels what he says rather than hears it and he most certainly cannot miss the reciprocating slickness that pools within her. She feels like she hovers on the threshold of divinity itself. Her throat is full of broken words, shattered by every pass of a calloused finger or the sweet agony of his tongue, and come out in those fragments of sound, gentled but guttural. She musters a moment when he gives mercy. One hand, previously a claw clutching their sheets in a grip like iron, manages to unclench only to reach down. Nails graze through his shorter locks to leave their spectral passage against his scalp. "Warn ya, Ronnie…I'll exact same same from you because I wan savour ya forevah." No other words see the dim light that gleams against their skin, but neither is she silent either as she writhes beneath him.

42. How long can you just kiss until your hands start to wander?

Generating Steam Heat || Accepting

They are having one of their personal days when the world outside of his flat simply fades out of existence. There are dogs strewn about the living room in various piles of repose though Claude and Noe are closest at hand. All Ron has to do is stretch an arm off the sofa and there'd be sleek black-furred muscle to greet his fingertips. Noe dozes on the opposite end with her head resting atop her favourite fish-shaped doll. Almost the same could be said of Beth in a way as she makes her home between his thighs and across his chest. One slender arm is wrapped around her big man's shoulders, fingertips splayed across the muscle there that almost always eventually draws her lips, her teeth if his mood allows for it, while the other rests on the space between the edge of the sofa and his ribs. The kisses might seem a lazy affair. Some are spectral pecks that barely glance off the lush tiers of his lips. Others are feather-soft, the tip of her tongue tracing their shape, the seam between them. She occasionally draws his lower lip between her own and while she'd never leave leave a bruise or blister she makes a feast of it. Cheekily brushes the tip of her sharper teeth in some faux-test bite. She could literally spend hours delving tenderly the cavern of his mouth ~hints of tea, chocolate flake, or the occasional sweet residue from his latest vape flavour~ seeing how their teeth fit together and inviting his tongue to follows hers when it retreats back into her mouth. Hours building up to that breathless light-headed feeling that starts just below the pit of her belly and all the way up to the roots of her hair. Minimal movement, shifting and rolling like the tide along Ron's seabed. Eventually though they need to both come up for air. The arm that cradles his neck and shoulders remains but the palm of her other hand comes to lay flat against his chest, where she can feel his heartbeat thriving in his chest. Her gaze pours over him with that same molten heat that seems to comprise everything she is beneath her skin, Tutu Pele's blood. She doesn't seek to have him meet her there in that space, she knows that it is uncomfortable to him at the best of times, even with her, so instead she allows herself to take in the whole of his features, the way his mouth parts, the way his breath hitches as she slides her hand down his chest. Over his muscles…stopping only when he catches her around her bird-boned wrist.

💚 I'd love your thoughts on Beth and her Prince in his tower

Imagine You and Me || Accepting

There but for the Grace of God... Isn't that how the saying goes? But maybe, just maybe, our Prince can find some grace in the maiden in the garden with her roots in the earth and most of the time, her head in the clouds. She has always believed in faery tales, and is it so impossible that she might see him through that lens? The silver in his hair and the careworn lines in his face do not seem to matter to her, nor the fact that his walls are sometimes too high to scale, and his kingdom lies under the pall of therapeutic medicines and trolls-posing-as--guards. Beth has no real understanding of the violent, impoverished youth and man, she only knows the quiet dreamer who is maybe out of touch with the world too. The one who makes her feel welcomed into the spaces of a puzzle, and who tells himself that he can't touch, can't hug, that there's always someone and something watching. Andy does his best to keep certain things from her and does his best to actually help Mr Kray. He isn't easy with any of this but he also is fascinated by the difference in sister and patient when they are allowed to spend {supervised} time together. This ship hurts my heart but also shines with a patina of hope. In a not so distant past, there might have been a chance for mercy and mending, of understanding far better than what we know to be true. Beth and Ron might not get a happily ever after, but I love seeing and writing and daydreaming with you how close they are in all the different lives that touch stones with one another. I think if there could be/could have been the chance, she would set him free from his tower, and take him by the hand to some quiet cottage that always seems to have a touch of autumn around it. There she would tell him stories through music old and new. Maybe coax him to dance with her close, arm around one another and hands held. To the open arms of the sea, yeah Lonely rivers sigh "Wait for me, wait for me" I can see Beth waiting. Even for another life.

📸

I see your face every time I dream || Accepting

Banana Nut Bread- Describe something you find comforting

Jurassic Asks || The Lost Meme

The question is posed as a simple curiosity and would be taken as such, were it anyone other than her Ron. It comes to her softly as their eyes meet and he clears his throat softly to draw that gaze down to his mouth that she might see the question being formed in its infancy, and it allows her to follow along to its natural end. She tilts her head a moment, no longer seeing the flowers they are watering but rather she searching her thoughts for something that fits the build. Some part of her worries over what the answer might be. Ron's upbringing had been vastly different than her own. She doesn't want to be the very vehemently murmured 'Tory' or 'Toff' that he often disdains. Ron isn't one for politics most of the time, but does have opinions. And as far as she can tell, her family falls right in line with those things he hates. "I suppose it all start wi' loud music. Any kind dat can sink into my bones enough dat it could be some alien heartbeat existing in my own or around me. To dat, I'll dance until I literally drop into a shapeless puddle. Muscles unable f' move, exhaustion make it easy f' fall asleep." Motion is a constant for Beth. Even when she does sleep she tosses or turns at intervals. Something in her psyche tends to whisper absolute stillness is tantamount to death. "If no can…" she doesn't explain that, trusting Ron to understand what it is to be incapable of certain things when being held hostage by one's neurodivergence. "Same loud-loud music, but softer. Piano, violin. Cello. Oh my goodness, I love cello. Wordless. Slow. Dey call it melancholy or romantic, but somet'ing old and beautiful. I'll pull out a prepared canvas, get out paint t'inner, my oils. Waddah colours. Tempura. Acryllics. Wha'evah I have handiest, you know? An' jus' start paint wi'da music. Sometimes I do it wi' my hands, oddah times wi' my brushes. Is much easier t' let out feeling dat way dan classical composition, sketchin' an' stuff." She offers him a smile though it is brittle at the edges mostly because she doesn't know if it sounds…weird. "I suppose dat...dat isn't quite wha' ya aksin' me about, is it?"

What’s your dirtiest sexual fantasy?

To Add a Little Spice || Accepting Ron's hand rests against her middle, rising and falling with her breath, the other arm nestled below her head. Bundled under the covers and packed in the bed with the pups, it's a sleepy, rainy midnight. And yet neither of them are able to quite manage to slip freely into sleep. Not a Horlick's night. Nothing beyond a soft urge to be more invested in one another than anything else. At first she can't differentiate the rumble of Ron's voice from a close peal of thunder. She picks apart what he says in the slow creep of lightning beyond the curtains. Once translated he must surely feel the little inward dip of her stomach and the way her breath gets trapped in her lungs just as her heartbeat ticks upward. Like the flicker of antique cinema films, images flash behind her half-lidded gaze as warmth suffuses her head to toe. The Quixotic one ~impossible for so many reasons~ would be to share a night of passion, serving both of his spiritual hearts. Big broad hands, the velvet bite of a voice she has never forgotten, a strong body just under a foot and some taller than hers. Ron'd like his stubble. The quick wit. All the things that he loves about her in a masculine form, and more. The hang-up that makes it the impossible is that...that dream died a long time ago and Beth is certain that he was never that way inclined to begin with. The second one could never live while she still believed in living pono. While she still held onto the beliefs of Aloha in her deepest heart. There is no place in her for cruelty, and that fantasy that begins to sketch itself into the pages of her thoughts can be called nothing else. For every time Reg has made a pass at her, has played poorly at being Ron just to see what she'd do, for every time he's treated Ron as a non-person and Frances as a training bag...she would love to prove to him the bitterest medicine he hasn't yet swallowed. She would arrange a tryst with some careful planning to be artfully displayed either beneath or above her Kanuha, in full flagrante. Once and for all proving who is the biggest, broadest, most talented Kray on the block, and who is just a little prick. The trouble with that might come from the fact that as much spite as he may harbour for Reg at times, he still loves his brother and the idea of being with her any where near his twin might make it impossible to do so.

Another dip, this time a flutter just below where his pinkie rests. A slow smile parts her lips enough to put her offset sharp little teeth on full display, but there's a sultry warmth when she pairs that with narrowed eyes, then leans in up toward his ear.... A deep kiss shared after they've both returned to their senses.The fullness of him mixed, mingled with the taste of her, traded in licks and laps until its finally swallowed by halves. They don't need the heat provided by the central power-grid in that moment, based on how much she radiates in that blush.

what is your muse’s love language?

Something Just Like This || Accepting

Her fingertips skim his knuckles at breakfast. When he looks up from the paper, Ron is met with an adoring smile. A little soft and a little shy, not unlike the first one he'd ever coaxed out from her. One that sets a glow in her eyes that shines through the thick veil of her lashes half lowered. The caress speaks volumes even if she doesn't say anything to accompany that look. Beth is often far more quiet than many people imagine, and despite those nights when they delve into one another's psyches. All the way to bedrock with gentle questions and unwavering empathy. Long before she and Ron realised that the love they share had a romantic bent, they understood. And she doesn't mean to be cruel or condescending but she thinks this is where Reg and Frances fail. From what she knows, theirs was a whirlwind courtship. Frances was barely sixteen, a good deal younger than Reg, and it had been about how pretty the other one was. When Beth was sixteen, she'd been leaving the only home she'd ever known to enter University. She'd been worried about being a stranger in a foreign land, and if she could keep up with students older and in many ways more mature than she was. And doing it all without her brother being there to support her through it. She hadn't even met Ron until she was a fully formed woman at the advancing age of twenty-seven. There'd been no 'at first sight'. If anything, she'd been utterly terrified of his grim and lethal form coalesced out of the shadows. She might have come straight out of her skin if not for 'the demon dog' as some might call Claude, who was somehow with his sleek yet massive frame and near slavering jaws snarling somewhat a lesser threat to her. When he realised she was no thief and this was all a misunderstanding, he'd shown her a far softer side. Gathered her up and let her dry out from her rain-slicked chill before his fire. Offered her tea and a listening ear. And beyond all expectation, he'd even offered to help her on her seeming impossible quest.

He'd become her new friend on a lonely island far from home. He also helped every step of the way, and especially when she realised that sometimes, things that seem so solid at first glance are really as fragile as soap bubbles; the one that had burst and stung her eyes being the infatuation she'd had with John. He'd dutifully held her hand and allowed her to mourn, crying on his shoulder. He'd gently patched her heart with one tender stitch at a time, be it with words or gifts or simply being there. Little by little that trust grew into the seedlings of care and friendship, and those in turn grew into a garden with love in full bloom and visible to anyone who could see them.

In turn, she's guided her half of it with little touches wherever he allowed them to make landfall. The holding of hands. The gentle pressure and kneading of sore and tired muscles. The way her fingers tend to trace the ink as it trails up and around his body, skin to skin. The heated kisses pressed to his lips and the faint sinking of teeth into sides and back of his neck, his shoulders.

Later, when he's dressing for the day, she fusses with his tie, enjoying doing even such a small thing for him, for her Ron. She knows he could do it himself, even in his own sleep, but it isn't really the point. Her palms smooth down his chest and she rises up on the tips of her toes to brush a kiss to his cheek.

"You smell good," she murmurs as she settles back down onto her feet before turning to select her own shoes. "M'gonna miss you all day."

For all that that neither she nor Ron ever needed to, work was an important facet in their lives; whether she spends time at his pub ~or attending events at the others that are shared with his twin~ or most especially the shifts she takes at the hospital, having these things gives them both a routine, allows them to reach out and serve their communities, but also gives them a little space from one another, another thing neither Reg nor Frances seem to understand.

Ron never fails to pick up his lass at the end of her shift.

And neither of them seem to notice the smile on Big Pat's face when she instinctively reaches for his hand.

😘 Ron wondered, as Beth relaxed back against his chest, if she could feel his heart hammering. The night was cool, the stars were out, and they were sat on a picnic blanket in one of London's most voluminous parks. She was between his raised knees was his lady-love, snuggled between the open folds of his long jacket - a faux fur blend since wool bought her skin to ruin. They were watching the night sky, and his heart was pounding. Full lips made soft stroked a kiss upon her temple; his I love you conveyed literally - broadcast all he could to her in the hope that some of his dust motes might glitter in the light that shone though her mind's windows.

A thready breath escaped without his say-so - covered, he hoped, by the curtain of her hair. He had so much to say. He just needed to get the bottle up to say it.

A Kiss is Still A... || Accepting

Beth might not always hear things the right way. She might have a…unique…way of speaking, expressing herself. But she is by no means stupid. In fact, she's got a lifetime of documentation that speaks to her cognative ability. She knows that there's the occasional side-eye from Frances. She's seen the faces Reg makes. The worry in Miss Vi's eyes when Beth gets too close, becomes too playful, doesn't seem to have any sense of survival when it comes to Ron. And she hates it. She hates that they don't seem to understand that Ron and she intersect in so many ways that they can't help but generate empathy for one another. Just a few days before, she'd heard a hushed discussion about the whole 'what if they have children…just like them'. There was a piercing sensation of betrayal that Frances even got the words out, but was shut down by Auntie May, maybe one of the few people who see the life they are making together. Take for example, tonight. There's been very little conversation, in a traditional way. There were glances, body language, a mixture of their own sign language. Hawai'ian. British. Pidgin with meaning that belongs only to them. There are no rough seas to bring on the quietude. They just have no need to fill the whole of their companionable silence with noise, noise, noise. It is one of the many things that so many people never really understand, that they don't see. Frances worries that Ron will hurt Beth, because he's….you know. And Miss Vi worries that something will happen and things will be that way again. And Reg is just Reg and maybe like the Admiral, there's no pleasing him. Beth hasn't stolen his twin from him, he did the job well enough by pushing Ron away when there wasn't club business to discuss. None of that matters here on this little low sloping hill, with the green grass and a nice picnic blanket beneath them. Her heart is in her throat for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, they're in The Dark and Beth hopes against hope that he can't see them. The things that live in it, the ones whose presence makes her skin feel like they are ants under her skin, creeping along every nerve ending. She doesn't dare ask because the last thing Ron needs is her own notions of what is out there, breathing. Waiting. Not when she can lose herself in the solid reality of him at her back. Where she can feel each breath like her Mother's. A vital tide that sometimes hazards a warmth at her cheek, or along the back of her neck. Caught in the lee of his coat that he shares because he knows that nothing is ever quite warm enough for her blood. The sustained sun and humid sweat of the highest summer temperatures soaring, the very things that melt he and the kin of his island, is one of the few things that gets her to uncurl from herself and layers of clothing ~lovingly borrowed, occasionally~ and bloom inside her dusky skin. Modestly she turns into his silent sonnets, his outpouring of unspoken words. Even in starlight and the faint city luminescence her eyes glow, and the nudges along his jaw with the tip of her nose, the way she tangles her fingers with his, the little gasps as the rare yellow fireballs of the Alpha Capricornids begin their streaks across the skies. She's sure that's what he wanted her to see. Ron might indulge her affections for astrology ~as two water signs, one Cardinal {her} and one mutable {him}, they are complimentary when joined~ she thinks he might like the factual and sometimes tangible proof of astronomy better. "Look, dere's one!" She points up to the meteor. "Hokulele." A flying star, literally. It is a symbol of luck, and therefore must be sealed with a kiss.

🖤

A Little Me, A Little You || Accepting

Kanuha || Ron Kray London Calling || Legend AU

attractiveness:

repulsive / hideous / ugly / not attractive / unappealing / not unattractive / meh / no preference / ok / mildly attractive / nice looking / cute / adorable / attractive / pleasant on the eyes / good looking / hot / sexy / beautiful / gorgeous / hot damn / would tap that / perfect / godlike / holy fuck there are no words.

personality:

grating / irritating / frustrating / boring / confusing at best / awkward / unreasonable / psychotic / disturbing / interesting / engaging / affectionate / aggressive / ambitious / anxious / artistic / bad tempered / bossy / charismatic / appealing / unappealing / creative / courageous / dependable / unreliable / unpredictable / predictable / devious / dim / extroverted / introverted / egotistical / gregarious / fabulous / impulsive / intelligent / sympathetic / talkative / up beat / peaceful / calming / badass / flexible.

how likely they would have sex with them:

not if they were the last person on earth and the world was ending / fuck no! / never / no way / not likely / not sure / indifferent / I’m asexual / maybe / probably / it depends / fairly likely / likely / yeah sure / yes / would tap that / hell yes / fuck yes! / wishing that could happen right now / as many times as possible / we are already having sex.

level of friendship:

never in a million years / worst of enemies / enemies / rivals / indifferent / neutral / acquaintance / friendly toward each other / casual friends / friends / good friends / best friends / fuck buddies / bosom buddies / practically the same person / would die for them / true friends / my only friend.

first impression of them:

i hate them so much / i don’t like them / i don’t trust them / they annoy me / they’re weird / utterly terrified / I’m indifferent / meh / they seem alright / they’re growing on me / truce / I think I like them / I like them / I’m not sure if I trust them / I trust them / they’re cool / they’re genuine / I think they might murder me /I think we’re going to get along / I really like them / I think I’m in love / oh fuck they’re hot / I love them.

current impression of them:

i hate them so much / i don’t like them / i don’t trust them / they annoy me / they’re weird / I’m indifferent / meh / they seem alright / they’re growing on me / truce / I think I like them / I like them / I’m not sure if I trust them / I trust them / they’re cool / they’re genuine / I think we’re going to get along / I really like them / I think I’m in love / oh fuck they’re hot / I love them.

"Do y'believe-" Ron asked as he went about servicing Sebastian the Wurlitzer, "-tha' inanimate fings c'n 'av souls?" It was an honest question, but also a bit of a reality-check-esqe one too. He'd not fallen for the nagging belief that the ol' boy'd picked up a spiritual hitchhiker at some point in his life, but there'd been times when he'd been rabbiting away into what he'd swear was an empty room after the pub shut and Sebastian had seemed to pop on a song either to accompany his mood or answer him.

Advice from Your Nurse Shark || Accepting "Yes," she says, without hesitation. She watches him while she dusts every single bottle behind the bar, admiring both his form ~sleeves rolled up, the flex and roll of muscle, of body placement~ and his actual mechanical skill. "One of our oldest proverbs speaks to it. He ali‘i ka ‘āina; he kauwā ke kanaka. Which is closest to...Da land is a chief, man is its servant. Every living t'ing has a spirit an' is related to every oddah living t'ing. Kalo ~taro plant~ is every bit as much our cousin as coral reef, as stone on the mountains, as Mike dat we only see on Holidays because he got a fancy job in da IT department of a hotel on Maui." She doesn't know if she's conveying quite the right context. "But more so... we make da kine now. Sebastian for example. Or even a phone or a shoe or a nice coat. I t'ink if you care about somet'ing, or you love somet'ing wheddah or not it was made by man or nature, dat love give it spirit if it didn't have one before. Love can an' does change everyt'ing, even if it just for you an' da person or t'ing." A shrug, which more or less is the equivalent of a nod of consideration. "Do you t'ink it got spirit? Dat it tries talk to you, in its own way? Do you believe only people got soul?"

"--Is one orgasm enough? Are multiple orgasms necessary?" Ron read that out in as close to the King's as was possible for him - the question printed on a scandalous slip of paper that was part of a scandalous game they'd took up on a bet. The bet was between themselves so it didn't really matter for much - wine if we enjoy the game; favourite snacks if we don't - but here they were, giving it the old college try. The Devil stole into Ron's grin as he eyed Beth, who sat beside and just across from him at the corner of the kitchen table. "Be 'onest" he purred. "So I know bettah f'next time."

Things That Make You Squirm || Accepting

She sits so primly in her own way as Ron reads the question aloud, and there's a little inward drawn gasp of breath that coincides with the flush that spreads from her crown of hair, down the delicate slopes of her face, to disappear into the depths below the scoop neck of her dress. She starts to apologise before she's taken by a fit of stifled giggles. The reaction is both modest and yet child-like but her laughter is the bells of summer rains. "I am an adultiah adult...I can answer dis. Firs' I mean...it's nevah one guarantee dat person wi' internal sexual organs will always have even one, an' dat is no failure on dey partner's part, right? Is just how dem bits work. Some don' evah experience it in dey life. I t'ink dat why sometimes, us built dis way also have a chance t' experience more dan one before we're done. Balances out da fact dat people wi' uhm...outside parts almost always experience one." That feels too clinical, not at all what he was asking. "I'm nevah greedy a person, I t'ink you know. Envious sometimes, I'll admit, but not gluttonous. If one happens, den dat's wonderful, an' you know what dat look' an' feel like. But I also don' wan ya feelin' out of sorts or disappointed if sometimes it no happen. Causes can be up an' down in hormones, in medication, an' simply because while I live t' bein' wrap around you, have you inside me, or whatevah we get up to, sometimes...I jus'... it's not an imperative? I don' need sex, good or oddahwise, to... to feel da way I do about you, yeah?" Her hand rests on the next paper, but she doesn't read it. "What's one t'ing you want me to do wi' or to you dat I nevah have?"

Deeper than Skin || Accepting

It creeps up on them both; in innocence he is with her when she buys a fistful of new sable brushes ~some of which she stroked across his palm so he could feel the full softness~, a basket-full of charcoals, pastels, and oil paints. He signs for the delivery of canvases, frames, bottles of gesso. Art and its creation is one of her favourite hobbies. Much like yoga and surfing and sometimes dancing, it is a solitary pursuit. There are worlds and alien vistas that live and thrive only inside of her head. Only a fraction of which make it to the waking world where others could see or touch them. And of these, nearly none of them feature humans. The faces, body references, and perfectly reproduced anatomy both inside and out are confined at best to sketch pads. She portions off a small part of the living room where the light comes streaming through the windows in the morning, where the dogs can't come in contact with the oils and the gesso. Sets up a little electrical kettle and a station of flavoured coffees, different trees. The first day she even has breakfast; fresh fruit slices and berries in her water jug, refrigerated to near icy perfection. She stretches the canvases, primes them. Sometimes she murmurs to him about the Van Gogh that the family owns ~hangs in her Auntie's study~ or how she prefers Impressionism over Vorticism. Soon though, conversation falls by the wayside as she puts in her air-pods and begins to work in earnest with only music in her ears or lips. The opening salvo. Food is the first casualty. Never really one with a robust appetite, she first picks at the things she collects for herself. Then they get set aside, in favour of the very same hot drinks she'd laid in before she started. Short sweeps of the charcoal outline her dreams, long and slow fine brush strokes bleeding colour into the work. Increasingly erratic movements, multiple projects in various stages of completion when he finally steps in at day four stretching into five, after she's passed on sleep, personal hygiene, barely takes the time to tend to other imperative functions. Deep shadows etch hollows beneath her fervently bright eyes. She puts up a token protest, explaining that she has to finish them. They need life. She squirms, wriggles, writhes within his gentle grasp, one heavy arm beneath the crook of her legs, the other wrapped securely around her shoulders. One thing Beth tends to forget is that most of his dogs have a good three or more stone on her and he wrestles them for fun and exercise. She stands petulant as he takes care to strip her out of the things she wears. As he pulls the pins out of her hair so that it falls down her shoulders. She finally concedes defeat when he sets her into the tub and the hot waer works to soothe the muscles she doesn't realise ache as if tormented by fiends from the pit. And even if she turns her face away, his hands stay gentle as he draws the sponge over every tawny inch of her with the same meticulous patience as she had shown with her paintings. He tries to coax her into conversation with the simple sounding question, punctuated with a little vocalisation on either end of it. She'd ventured into portraits this time. One hand drips soapy water to soak the white dress shirt he's wearing, sleeves rolled up to show his ink and the veins beneath his skin. She strokes his traps carefully. "Dis." Fingers saunter down and stroke between elbow and wrist, then each of his fingers in turn. "Dis." She glances toward him though her gaze rises no higher than the plush tiers of his lips.

"But really, mebbe is da liver. No one really stops to t'ink about alla crazy kine it does or can do, when it function properly. "

A small pause.

"Hyoid bone. Is horse-shoe shape bone you find in da anterior midline of da neck between da chin an' thyroid cartilage. When it rest, it lie between da base of da mandible an' third vertebrae of da c-spine. Is da only bone in da human body not connect to any oddahs near by, so I often wonder if it get lonely. It is anchored by muscles from da anterior, posterior, an' inferior. Dey discover a modern lookin' hyoid bone in a Neandert'al man from da Kebara Cave in Israel, an' dat lead to an argument as to wheddah Neandert'al had a descended larynx, an' was capable of makin' human like speech. Plus, I t'ink it kind of neat. Look like dat movie Loki's horns."